iddave;
Good morning to you sir, I trust that this finds you and yours as well as can be all things considered.
Thanks for sharing the built specs and photos, I appreciate you doing so, but likely for different reasons than most readers.
My personal reason is that back in the day when the local mountains still had points and I had a luxurious head of hair, my hunting partner used a B78 in .25-06 and I did a fair bit of modification/tuning on the rifle and helped with the handloads.
With it, he killed a good number of local mulie bucks, one of them the largest bodied either of us ever encountered in a lifetime of traipsing about the steep hills. For the life of me I'd have to look to be sure, but think that big fellow died with 117gr Hornady BT, but we also tried 100gr Partitions and 120gr Speer spitzers too.
Anyway, from a couple of BC rednecks unscientific but reasonably extensive data, we didn't find one bit of difference between the .25-06, .270 and .30-06 with bullets up to 180gr on deer/black bear/sheep sized animals.
Since that time I've converted to the church of fast twist whenever possible and can say with a fair bit of confidence your son is going to love that rifle and the way it performs on game.
Oh, before leaving this - for years my go to hunting arm was a BBR '06 with a 21" barrel and currently is a 98 6.5x55 with a 21" barrel. In my view there's good evidence to believe that odd number barrel lengths might/could have more mojo than even numbers......
We're still gathering data of course on that theory, but the early numbers look promising.
Thanks for giving me the reason to walk back in time and go once again in my memory on some grand hunts sir, it's a much appreciated diversion.
A tip of the hat to you for doing that wonderful project for your son, well done sir!
All the best to you and yours. Stay well.
Dwayne
